Counting rings is easy indeed, but scoring borderline shots without a scoring gauge is not, because the visible bullet hole is often smaller than the bullet itself.
Where do you see that?
The article is about someone in Scotland who took up marksmanship as a hobby.
I would definitely get to the point of stalking deer faster if I were to book a few 1-1 sessions at an outdoor range instead, but "faster" was never the point.
There are multiple mentions of him being motivated by wanting to shoot deer for meat. It is a through line via the article.
> The article is about someone in Scotland who took up marksmanship as a hobby.
I wish it were so. With a bit more self awareness the author could have said “initially picked up a rifle to learn to hunt deer, but doing so i learned how targets are scored and become interested in automating that process.” There is nothing wrong with that. But pretending that someone is doing all this coding to get better charcuterie is where it becomes frustrating yak shaving.
A perfectionist defines a goal and then finds the perfect path to get there. He was just giving in to distractions and "perfectionist" is the wrong label.
> every minute spent perfecting this automation was not spent improving shooting skills by, you know, shooting
I mention in the post that I had access to the range only 1-2 evenings a week, so there was no way I could improve my skills outside of these few hours.
> if I don't care about 8/10 vs 9/10 shots from 25 yards, there is no way I am putting a shot within a 4" circle from 100 metres.
Totally with you there. Though isn't what counts in the end how close you were to the center? If you look with your eyes and it looks like it was in the 3rd ring, what does it matter whether it "technically" wasn't because half a millimeter was in the next ring? It was surely much better shot than fully in the next one, unless you actually want to go to the olympics or are otherwise competing in the sport.
Don't get me wrong, I totally respect the challenge of automating the counting but that this actually helped your progress still seems doubtful to me.
> I mention in the post that I had access to the range only 1-2 evenings a week, so there was no way I could improve my skills outside of these few hours
Ok, fair. Though we can surely agree that even though the automation-building that you did during all this extra time improved your skills, it was coding skills rather than shooting skills? (Which, again, is fantastic!)